High Heels and Lipstick (5 page)

“Yeah.” The word came out thick and garbled. “I don't want to talk to some stranger.”

“That's why I'm getting Mrs. Turnbull. Will you be all right here for a minute?”

I was already not all right. I didn't see how her leaving the room would change anything. “Yeah,” I said again.

“I'll be right back. Shout if you need anything. I mean it.”

I didn't bother answering this time. She left, and I closed
my eyes again.

In the darkness behind my eyelids, everything was
magnified. I saw Maryellen crying in the girls' bathroom the day she told me about her and Jim. The way she turned her back to me every time she saw me in the hall after the harassment started.

I saw her in a generic bedroom with a bottle of pills in her hand.

My stomach rolled, and I turned onto my side fast in case I threw up. My heart was thudding, and I started to shake. I didn't know how Maryellen had done it. Ms. Rondeau hadn't said, of course, but I figured pills were the most likely way. Take a bottle or two, fall asleep, and just not wake up.

A sob burst out of me, then another, and then I was crying so hard I couldn't catch my breath. And part of me was glad about it.

M
RS
. T
URNBULL
and Mrs. Alves hurried into the room. They'd probably heard me crying. I was vaguely aware they were asking me questions, but I could barely hear them and didn't want to think hard enough to answer. I just let their voices roll over me and tried to calm down.

Mrs. Turnbull only stayed a few minutes, then said something about other students waiting for her and left the room. Since I couldn't stop crying enough to speak, she probably figured she'd be better off dealing with kids who were actually saying something.

Mrs. Alves stayed in the room with me. She didn't say a word, but having her there made me feel a little better. By the time Mom showed up, I was sniffling and still had tears trickling down my face, but I wasn't full-out crying anymore.

“Chastaine, it's okay.” Mom gathered me up into a hug without giving me a chance to sit up on my own. “It's okay. I called Kendra. She's going to see you right away.”

Kendra was my counselor. The one who was supposed to help me “get over” what Jim had done to me, though to give her credit, Kendra never actually put it that way. She said she wanted to help me heal. Mostly we talked about my life, the partying and sex and shopping and stuff I'd done before November. Once in a while, she brought up Jim, but I tried to avoid the topic.

Next to Holly, Kendra was the easiest person I knew to talk to. But of course, she got paid for it.

“Can't I go to class?” I didn't know why I'd asked that. I'd meant to ask if I could go home. But now that I mentioned class, it sounded like a better idea. I would be around other people, which meant I would have distractions.

“I think it's better if you take the rest of the day off,” Mrs. Alves said. “Or go to your counselor, at least. You had a big shock. You can certainly go to class and try to finish the day if you want and if your mother's okay with it, but I wouldn't advise it.”

Most days lately, leaving school would have been my dream situation. I wouldn't have to listen to people in the halls, or figure out where to sit in the cafeteria if it was a day when I didn't have lunch block class with Holly, Evan, and Guillermo. Fortunately, those days only happened about once a week thanks to the completely weird way our school configured the schedule, but once a week was once more than I wanted. And I couldn't remember whether today was one of those days or not.

It didn't matter. I didn't want to leave. Someone had almost died because of the bullying people had dished out to her. Maybe that would get through some people's thick heads, and they wouldn't hassle me as much.

The second the thought crossed my mind, I hated myself. I had no right using Maryellen's choice as a reason to hope idiots would leave me alone.

Maybe Mrs. Alves was right. Maybe I did need to talk to someone.

I squirmed, and Mom let go of me. When I was little, Mom's hugs had made everything better, but since middle school, I'd stopped wanting hugs most of the time. Her holding me today kind of helped, but not much. And I was uncomfortable having her touch me in an office where anyone might see.

“Kendra made room in her schedule to see you,” Mom said.

“Yeah, I get it,” I muttered. She was only trying to help, but she sounded close to tears, which pissed me off. She didn't have anything to cry about. I was the one who was partly responsible for someone almost dying, and I was pulling myself together pretty well. “I'll go see Kendra, but if she says I can come back to school afterward, I want to. If I miss too much school it'll screw with my grades, right?”

“This would be an excused absence,” Mrs. Alves said. “It wouldn't affect your grades. Take care of yourself, Chastaine. You're more important than your classes.”

“Yeah.” I didn't completely buy that, but there wasn't any point in arguing with the adults. They knew everything.

“I'll tell Holly and Eleanor you're leaving,” Mrs. Alves said.

“Thanks.” I'd almost forgotten that she'd promised to fill them in on whether I was okay.

Since we'd had to go straight to the auditorium, I had all my stuff with me. I didn't even remember bringing it to the nurse's office. Then again, I barely remembered walking to the office with Holly and El-Al. Maybe one of them had brought my jacket and backpack. However it had happened, it meant I didn't have to go to my locker or a classroom, which was a good thing. Mom and I would be able to get outside without anyone other than the secretaries in the main office seeing us.

Mom stayed a little too close beside me as we walked out of the building to her car, which was parked in the fire lane right in front of the steps. She stayed beside me while I got into the passenger seat and closed the door for me before going to the driver's side. I thought about reminding her that she had to sign me out in the main office, but didn't bother. Probably either she'd already done it or the nurse would take care of it. It wasn't my problem as long as I didn't get in trouble.

“Mrs. Alves told me about that poor girl,” Mom said after she got into the car. She shifted into drive and took off a little faster than she should have.

“Yeah. I don't want to talk about it.”

“Who was she?”

I yelled. No words, just noise.

Mom jumped and started to say something. I cut her off. “I said I don't want to talk about her. That means I'm not telling you who she was or why she did it or anything. Don't ask me anything else. Just leave me alone!”

I started crying again and was furious with myself for it. Without a word, Mom took a pile of napkins out of the holder on her door and held them out to me. We always had takeout napkins in the car for such an occasion.

We drove into Boston, to my counselor's office near the airport. I let Mom check me in at the reception desk because I hadn't managed to stop crying yet and didn't want to try to talk to anyone.

Kendra's office was on the second floor, and she was waiting at the top of the stairs. “Good morning, Chastaine. I hear you're having a rough day. Come on in and let's see if we can make anything easier for you.”

My throat had closed so much I couldn't speak, so I simply nodded.

She led us down the hall to her office. Mom tried to follow me inside, which I completely did not want. She didn't know all the details about me or about what had happened, and I preferred it that way. If she was in the office, I wouldn't be able to talk to Kendra.

Fortunately, Kendra had a clue. “Mrs. Rollo, please have a seat in the waiting area. I'd like to give Chastaine a chance to speak freely.”

“She can talk in front of me.” Mom looked at me.
“Chastaine?”

I shook my head, and Mom's face fell. “Fine,” she said. “I'll be out here if you need me.”

She walked away slowly, as if she was waiting for us to stop her. Of course, neither of us did.

Kendra closed the door and motioned toward the plastic chair beside her desk. The place was too low-budget to have comfortable chairs for clients. She sat in her rolling chair and took a folder out of the stack on the shelf next to her. My file, which was a lot thicker than it had been two months ago when I'd started seeing her.

“Tell me what happened this morning.” She opened the folder and picked up a pen.

She had to have already known. My mother must have told her something when she'd called to have Kendra see me.

I swallowed a few times, trying to get rid of the lump in my throat so I'd be able to talk. “Why do I have to tell you?” I asked.

“You don't have to, but it might help.”

She said that every single time I tried to get out of talking to her. It kind of pissed me off. It was her job to get me to talk. If I said I didn't want to, she was supposed to persuade me. But she never did. She just told me I didn't have to say anything if I didn't want to.

Somehow, that always made me want to say something.

“I hung out with my friends before school.” I was glad I'd been able to finish most of my coffee before we left the donut shop. I could have used a lot more caffeine, though. “When we got to school, they announced that everyone had to go into the auditorium. And then they told us someone tried to commit suicide because of bullying and stuff.”

I paused and took a few breaths. I didn't want to start crying again.

“That must have been hard to hear,” Kendra said.

“It was the other girl.” I'd never said Maryellen's name to Kendra, but she knew who I meant. “Last night, I found out he pled guilty. They haven't sentenced him yet.” I didn't say Jim's name if I could help it either, but Kendra knew who I was talking about when I said “him” too. “She probably found out too, so I don't know why she did this. She should have been happy, but she's been getting the same crap at school that I have. We both probably should be happy, but I'm not. I keep wondering why he admitted it, and I know it isn't going to change anything at school.”

“I'm sure the news brought up some complicated emotions for her. And for you.” Kendra made a note in my file. “How are you feeling right now?”

“I don't even know.” I pulled a tissue out of the box on the corner of her desk and dabbed my eyes. I'd managed to do a decent makeup job that morning even though I was upset. By now, the eyeliner and stuff was probably a complete mess, but I still barely touched my eyes with the tissue. I didn't want to make it any worse than it was.

I needed to find a mirror and make sure I didn't look scary. But I didn't get up, because I doubted Kendra would let me leave the office for a makeup check.

“Do you have any idea?” she asked.

“About how I'm feeling?” This was a part of counseling I hated. I didn't get why I had to identify my emotions in order to deal with them, as Kendra put it. She should have been able to tell me what to do to get over it instead of making me tell her the names for everything I felt.

Especially since I had times when I didn't have words for the emotions.

“About how you're feeling,” she agreed. “I know you don't like to talk about this, Chastaine. I'm checking in with you.”

“Oh.” She had to make sure I wasn't going to copy Maryellen, I guessed. If I died, or even tried to, on Kendra's watch, it wouldn't look good for her career. “I'm sad. Scared. Furious. Lonely.”

I didn't even know where that last one came from.

“All understandable.” She wrote something else in my file. “Do you feel depressed or like you want to hurt yourself? I have to ask.”

“I know you do, but it's stupid.” I rolled my eyes. “Depressed a little, maybe. But not like depression-depressed. Just really sad. And no, I don't want to hurt myself. I'd like to beat the crap out of a few people at school, though.”

I stopped myself before I said anything else. Telling a mental health professional that I had violent thoughts might not be the smartest move.

“Who do you want to beat up?” she asked.

“For fuck's sake!” I usually tried not to swear in front of her, but this was a special occasion. “I don't want to talk about it. People. Just all the people that made her and me feel like we were being punished for something we didn't even do. All the people who blamed us for what was done to us because they're too stupid to realize it's a crime. That's who.”

She stayed totally calm, even though I was yelling by the end of my rant. That was one of the things that made her a good counselor, probably. I'd never seen her show any emotion at all. “You think the people who harassed her had something to do with her choice?”